News November 24, 2022: Holm Security, Ledyer, Lifelong, memmo, Freetrade and more

Here are today's news from Sweden's startup and tech sector, exclusively for subscribers of Swedish Tech News.

Funding news

• Holm Security (Stockholm, vulnerability management platform): €4M ($4M) in a funding round led by Subvenio Invest (English).
• Ledyer (Stockholm, B2B payment solution): undisclosed amount from Thoren Tillväxt (Swedish, machine translation).
• In a follow-on investment, Scania Growth Capital participated in a €10M Series A round raised by German LiDAR technology startup Scantinel (English).

>> Daily updated, subscriber-exclusive Google sheet with all funding rounds raised by private Swedish startups and scaleups.

News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

• Stockholm-based startup Lifelong, founded 2019 by Adam Webb, announced the upcoming launch and Kickstarter campaign of Lifelong deodorant – a refillable, reusable, sustainable and natural deodorant "build to last a lifetime" (English).
• memmo, Stockholm-based provider of personalised greeting messages from celebrities, cut its workforce in several rounds of layoffs from 120 to 26 employees. Now the startup's main focus is B2B, by offering companies a platform to find celebrities available for campaigns. The consumer business won't be given up though, says co-founder and CEO Tobias Bengtsdahl (Swedish / Breakit paywall).
• UK-headquartered commission free trading app Freetrade has launched for users in Sweden, although it is initially only available on iOS. Support for Sweden-listed stocks is said to be added in early 2023 (Swedish, no machine translation available).
• Southern Swedish business news site Rapidus published its annual list of Skåne's most talented rising stars ages 34 and younger. It includes lots of founders of innovative tech startups (Swedish, machine translation).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• Pitchbook's quarterly data update suggests European pre-money valuations "remained robust" in Q3 (English).
• Extensive founder guide to B2B sales by VC firm Balderton (English).
• The generative AI revolution in games (English)

Other interesting things related to Sweden

• The European Space Agency has chosen 17 new astronaut candidates from more than 22 500 applicants from across its Member States, among them one Swede: Marcus Wandt (English, Swedish).
• Sweden’s central bank hikes core rate to highest level in 14 years (English, Swedish).
• SAS opens a route to New York's JFK airport, from Copenhagen (English)

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That's it for today.